{"id":14568,"date":"2022-03-17T10:48:33","date_gmt":"2022-03-17T14:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/poweramericainstitute.org\/?post_type=news&p=14568"},"modified":"2022-03-17T10:51:42","modified_gmt":"2022-03-17T14:51:42","slug":"poweramerica-nist-racer","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/poweramericainstitute.org\/news\/poweramerica-nist-racer\/","title":{"rendered":"PowerAmerica Receives $5M NIST Cooperative Agreement to Help Native American Communities Better Prepare for Future Pandemics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: This news article was originally published<\/a> by the Office of Research and Innovation and is reprinted here with permission.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

March 16, 2022 by<\/span>\u00a0Matt Simpson<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

PowerAmerica has been\u00a0awarded a $5 million cooperative agreement from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to help Native American communities better prepare for future disasters and emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

The Institute will work\u00a0closely with Navajo Technical University, Sandia National Lab in New Mexico, and other Native colleges to engage with these communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cNC State is proud to play a pivotal role in this important work,\u201d says Mladen Vouk, Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation. \u201cAs a land-grant university, it\u2019s part of our job to improve the lives of everyday people. And thanks to this funding, we\u2019ll be able to help some of the communities in this country who were hit the hardest by COVID-19.\u201d<\/p>\n

Native American communities were disproportionately affected by the pandemic \u2014 in large part due to the widespread lack of electric utility infrastructure. This infrastructure is critical to the refrigeration of vaccines and other medicines or supplies. And without it, setting up field hospitals that can effectively treat patients locally becomes much harder.<\/p>\n

To address this issue and other complications that have resulted from the pandemic, PowerAmerica will develop a solar-powered microgrid to power on-site field hospitals and refrigeration; a semiconductor-based fast-charging system for drones to support rapid supply delivery; a solar-powered system for supplying critical electric loads at home; and a low-cost, energy-efficient air quality control system with pathogen-detection and disinfection capabilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn close collaboration with Native American leaders and colleges, we will build pandemic resiliency in native communities through a strategic, agile, mobile, efficient, and rapidly deployable renewable-energy-based electrification response tailored to native cultural, health infrastructure, and geographic realities,\u201d says Victor Veliadis, executive director and CTO of PowerAmerica and principal investigator of the NIST grant. \u201cI am honored to lead the team of PowerAmerica experts deploying these clean energy solutions and educational initiatives.\u201d<\/p>\n

NC\u00a0State will also create technical and engineering courses for community colleges that center Native communities and their needs in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and future pandemics.<\/p>\n

Specifically, PowerAmerica will develop a \u201cTrain the Trainer\u201d curriculum for community college instructors and working technicians \u2014 builders, electricians and roofers \u2014 in Native American communities. The curriculum will be customized from existing courses offered by the\u00a0NC Clean Energy Technology Center<\/a>, located at NC\u00a0State.<\/p>\n

PowerAmerica will also deliver a curriculum for community college students on clean energy technology, including solar energy, energy storage, microgrids, clean transportation and efficient buildings.<\/p>\n

PowerAmerica, a\u00a0member of Manufacturing USA<\/a>, was launched by the U.S. Department of Energy in 2014 as the Next Generation Power Electronics National Manufacturing Innovation Institute. PowerAmerica is engineering new wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductor technologies that revolutionize energy efficiency in a variety of applications \u2014 including power grids, electric vehicles and high-bandwidth electronics. WBG semiconductors allow power electronic systems to be smaller, faster, more reliable and more efficient.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am thrilled that institutes in the Manufacturing USA network can leverage their technological expertise and extensive industry connections to provide pandemic response solutions,\u201d says Mike Molnar,\u00a0NIST Office of Advanced Manufacturing<\/a>\u00a0director. \u201cThe PowerAmerica project will convene multiple universities, community colleges, national labs and others with the goal of making Native American communities more resilient with reliable and efficient energy systems that are also clean and renewable. The effort\u2019s \u2018train the trainer\u2019 component brings added value by supporting Tribal Community college instructors, working technicians and Native American college students.\u201d<\/p>\n

The funding is part of NIST\u2019s Rapid Assistance for Coronavirus Economic Response (RACER<\/a>) Program, which seeks innovative solutions for future pandemic preparedness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: This news article was originally published by the Office of Research and Innovation and is reprinted here with permission.\u00a0 March 16, 2022 by\u00a0Matt Simpson PowerAmerica has been\u00a0awarded a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","tags":[],"news-category":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poweramericainstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/14568"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poweramericainstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poweramericainstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poweramericainstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poweramericainstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14568"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/poweramericainstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/14568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16708,"href":"https:\/\/poweramericainstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/14568\/revisions\/16708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poweramericainstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poweramericainstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14568"},{"taxonomy":"news-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poweramericainstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-category?post=14568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}